Michael Kenneally and Kitty Kearney

My family and I were very saddened to receive an e-mail from County Clare in November 2000 informing us that Kitty Kearney had passed away. And we were shaken by more terrible news when her brother Michael passed away barely two weeks later.

Their older brother Tom had been married to my father’s sister Teresa, and Michael and Kitty made me feel welcome in their houses as they reminisced about the old days in Maghera with Tom and “Tessie.” Both Michael and Kitty had in their possession some very old snapshots my mother had mailed to Ireland in the 1930s, and they were delighted when they realized that I was the young boy in some of the old family photographs.

On this page are a few photographs of Michael and Kitty. We shall always remember them.

On an afternoon in May 2000 my son Robert arrived at Michael’s house just as Michael came outside to light his pipe and enjoy the afternoon sunlight. Robert quickly snapped this portrait.

Michael is on the left in this photograph, which was taken on a very happy day in Maghera. The occasion is the wedding of my Aunt Teresa, who stands next to her husband, Tom Kenneally. Michael was his brother’s best man, and the maid of honor was a neighbor, Margaret Hehir. The date was July 5, 1939.

Visiting with Kitty Kearney was an absolute joy. She had vivid memories of my grandfather and my aunts, and she enjoyed telling stories about life in Maghera.

Kitty took out a box of old family photographs, and in the box of photos we found some of the snapshots my mother had mailed from New Jersey to my aunt many years earlier. When I told Kitty I was the boy in one photo, she clutched her chest in surprise, and blurted out, “That’s you? Oh my!” And then she burst out laughing. I will always remember her wonderful laugh.